SCARPA History

Innovation and tradition share equally deep roots at SCARPA, which today remains
a family owned company with its headquarters and performance footwear
manufacturing facilities in the same regions of northern Italy where it got its start in 1938.

Founded in Asolo, in the Montebelluna region, an area long known for its quality,
handcrafted footwear, SCARPA's initial mission was to bring together all the best
shoemakers in the Asolo area toward the goal of producing the best footwear anywhere.
SCARPA stands for Società Calzaturiera Asolana Riunita Pedemontana Anonima,
which means Associated Shoe Manufacturing Company of the Asolo Mountain Area.

It was immersed in this tradition of craftsmanship and heritage that Luigi Parisotto,
who would eventually purchase the company with his brothers and grow it into a
family enterprise, first began learning the art of making fine footwear in the Asolo
area. Parisotto began learning his craft at age 11 in 1940 and went to work for
SCARPA in 1942. From the beginning, Parisotto loved the process of building
handcrafted footwear, and in the early 1950s ran his own shoe-manufacturing
business, S. Giorgio, with his brothers, turning out between four and 15 pairs of
handmade shoes a day. These were sold to local farmers who sought out shoes that
were both comfortable and indestructible.

In 1956, Parisotto and three of his brothers, with the assistance of their family, pulled
together enough money to make an offer on SCARPA. It was accepted and the
business quickly grew under their leadership to encompass 17 expert shoemakers
, and expanded during these early years to produce 50 to 60 pairs a day. In the late
1950s, word about SCARPA's quality began to spread more widely outside the
Montebelluna region and they attracted clientele from many other parts of northern Italy.

The company was among the first to recognize the needs of northern Italy's rapidly
developing mountaineering and climbing culture, and to develop footwear with
features dedicated to those pursuits. Those features, along with the brand's
legendary durability and fit, led to many of Italy's early mountaineers using SCARPA
shoes. In 1965, an Italian-American living in Boston began importing SCARPA
footwear, making it the first manufacturer from the Asolo region to export to the U.S.

SCARPA continued to innovate in the 1970s, developing the popular Rally boot for
alpine skiing and pioneering an early high-altitude plastic boot for mountaineering,
first called the Grinta and later the Inverno (as it's known in North America,
internationally referred to as the Vega.) That boot has been used by many top
climbers and explorers throughout the Himalayas and Antarctic, and was also
adopted by the Italian, U.S., French, Spanish and other militaries for use by troops in
extreme conditions.

That pioneering spirit has continued at SCARPA. The company has many firsts to its
name, including being the first to build a Gore-Tex boot and the first to develop a
plastic telemark skiing boot, and introduced in 2007, the first telemark and alpine
touring compatible boot.

Now, the next generation of Parisottos is continuing that pursuit of innovative
mountain footwear. Sandro, Piero, Davide, Cristina and Andrea Parisotto continue to
lead the company to produce the finest footwear for hiking and trekking,
mountaineering, climbing and skiing.

In 2005, SCARPA opened its North American headquarters, headed by veterans of
the outdoor industry in North America. This followed many decades of the SCARPA
brand being handled by distributors in the U.S. and Canada. Working with the
Parisottos, the Boulder, CO office now assists with product development for the U.S.
and Canada preferences and oversees sales and marketing in North America, adhering to our passions.

We are passionate about our sports; we are passionate about boot making; we are
passionate for performance.